Recreational boaters often tie their boats together, or “tie-up” with other boaters to socialize or to take a break from boating activities such as waterskiing or wakeboarding. Boats are typically tied together via ropes where a rope attached to one boat is thrown to the other boat and is attached to a cleat or other securing device. Sometimes, a rubber bumper(s) is placed between two boats that have tied up to prevent them from bumping into each other and potentially damaging each other.
Recently, wakeboarding has become a popular pastime for boaters. Wakeboard boats typically include a wakeboard tower that is used to tie a rope from the wakeboard tower that extends to the wakeboarder pulled by the wakeboard boat. Wakeboard boats often include wakeboard racks located on one or both sides of the wakeboard tower that are used to stow the wakeboards when they are not being used. A difficulty arises when a wakeboard boat with a wakeboard rack seeks to tie up with another boat, as often the wakeboard rack may rub against and potentially deface or damage the paint or fiberglass of the boat that it ties up with. The problem is exacerbated when two wakeboard boats having wakeboard racks seek to tie up with each other. Often, even when using a rubber bumper, the wakeboard racks may extend from the side of the boat to such an extent that the wakeboard racks bump into each other or into the other boat, potentially damaging the paint or fiberglass of the other boat.
Thus, there is a need to provide a device that can be used to separate a wakeboard boat from another boat that it is tied up with to prevent the wakeboard rack from bumping into and potentially damaging the other boat. More particularly, there is a need to provide a device that can be used to separate two boats having wakeboard racks that are tied up to one another.